Briefing from the Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman on: Phonecalls, Iraq, Asylum, Lords Reform and ‘The Simpsons’.
Phonecalls
The Prime Minister’s Official Spokesman (PMOS) advised journalists that the Prime Minister would be speaking Prime Minister Koizumi of Japan as part of his round of phonecalls to, and meetings with, world leaders to update them on his visit to the US last week.
Iraq
Asked if the Prime Minister had seen Tony Benn’s interview with Saddam Hussein which had been broadcast on Channel 4 News last night, the PMOS said that he hadn’t. However, he had perused a transcript of it as part of his preparations for PMQs today. His general reaction was that he personally was expecting a slightly tougher time from Jeremy Paxman in his Newsnight interview tomorrow when he would be taking questions on Iraq. The PMOS observed that Saddam Hussein would be better off spending his time answering the questions being posed by Hans Blix and his team of weapons inspectors; questions, for example, concerning tonnes of VX nerve agent and thousands of warheads which UNSCOM had been unable to account for when they had left Iraq in 1998. The PMOS also took the opportunity to remind journalists, in case they were in any doubt about Saddam’s relations with the media, that this was a regime which had murdered an Observer correspondent some years ago. Asked if the Prime Minister believed that the interview should have been conducted, the PMOS said that it was a matter for Tony Benn. Questioned as to whether the Prime Minister might consider doing a similar interview with Tony Benn, the PMOS said that he hadn’t been asked for one. His next media engagement was with Mr Paxman - who did not have much to fear in terms of his reputation as an interrogator.
Asked about the money that Channel 4 News had paid to obtain the right to broadcast the interview, the PMOS said that the financial arrangements that had been made were a matter for Channel 4 News. From our point of view, no one was complaining about the interview. No one was fantastically bothered about it; indeed, we were indifferent. It didn’t change anything. As we had stated repeatedly - and as Resolution 1441 made crystal clear - the onus was on Saddam to prove to the satisfaction of UNMOVIC that he did not have weapons of mass destruction (WMD). That meant either satisfying them by accounting for the missing munitions and WMD capability highlighted by UNSCOM in 1999, or by taking part in a process of peaceful disarmament under the auspices of the UN. As Mohammed ElBaradei had said on a number of occasions, Saddam was guilty until he proved his innocence.
Asked if the Government continued to believe that a number of Al Qaida members were being ’sheltered’ in Iraq as we had asserted in a briefing last Wednesday, the PMOS said that he stood by what we had said last week. He reminded journalists that his colleague had warned them against getting too hung up on one word. As the Prime Minister had told the House last week, "We know of links between Al Qaida and Iraq. We cannot be sure of the exact extent of those links." In addition, the Foreign Secretary had talked this morning about a ‘permissive environment’ within Iraq.
Questioned about the BBC’s report this morning which was based on a leaked intelligence document which appeared to cast doubt on the Government claims of a linkage between Iraq and Al Qaida, the PMOS said that we never commented on leaked documents. That said, it was important to put the report into context. We stood by everything we had said in the past with regard to Al Qaida and links to Iraq. As the Prime Minister had told the House last week, he had chosen his words with great care when he had appeared before the Liaison Committee last month. What he and other Ministers said on this matter reflected the advice they received from the Joint Intelligence Committee. It was the job of the Committee to assess the different pieces of intelligence and analysis and then submit advice to the Prime Minister and Ministers accordingly. Taking a few lines from one piece of analysis and saying that it represented the judgement of the British Government was simply wrong. Intelligence work was more complex than that. You had to have access to the complete jigsaw - and it was a complex, multi-layered jigsaw - in order to make an assessment of the whole picture. The Prime Minister had chosen his words with great care on this issue. Jack Straw’s words today underlined our position. We had never sought to push the envelope on this. Our argument about Saddam was to do with his WMD capability. Why was Resolution 1441 so important? Because Saddam had been in breach of his international obligations to disarm for twelve years. Why was there a greater urgency now to confront the issue? Because the landscape had changed post-September 11. As the Prime Minister had stated repeatedly, we were facing threats both from international terrorism and from WMD. The worry was that unless we dealt with both of them, there would be a marriage between the two at some point in the future - with devastating consequences. Asked if he was disputing the BBC’s report this morning, the PMOS said that he hoped his reply put the report into context. As he had underlined, people could not - and should not - make a judgement about what was Government policy from one piece of analysis. If he was being asked whether the Prime Minister had seen the document in question, the answer was no, he hadn’t. He received his advice from the Joint Intelligence Committee and he had explained the important role they played.
Pressed as to whether the Government continued to believe that a number of Al Qaida operatives were being sheltered in areas of Iraq which were under the control of Saddam Hussein, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had stated that there was evidence to suggest such linkages. Mr Straw’s comments about the existence of ‘permissive environment’ this morning also underlined that point. We continued to stand by what we had said.
Asked if the Prime Minister was intending to watch the proceedings at the UN Security Council this afternoon, the PMOS said that he did not know whether the Prime Minister would have time to sit down and watch. He thought it unlikely. He would, of course, be kept in touch with what was going on. He had a pretty good idea of what Colin Powell would say because he had been given a comprehensive rundown of the presentation during his visit to the US last week, as you would expect, although he hadn’t yet seen a final text.
Put to him repeatedly that there was no evidence to suggest a linkage between Iraq and Al Qaida, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had told the House last week that, "We do know of links between Al Qaida and Iraq. We cannot be sure of the exact extent of those links". That remained the position. Put to him that no evidence had been suggested to back up the claims, the PMOS said that the Prime Minister had stated to the Liaison Committee that, "There are points at which you can either suggest there was nothing to link Al Qaida and Iraq at all, which would not be correct. Or alternatively, that we were suggesting that Saddam Hussein was responsible for recent events in the UK. And I’m not suggesting that". The PMOS said he was making the point that it was the job of the Joint Intelligence Committee to assess pieces of intelligence and different analyses and reach their own judgements. What the Prime Minister had said reflected the advice which had been given to him. For other people to make a judgement based on just one strand of the whole raft of intelligence information we received was simply wrong. Put to him that if the Prime Minister wanted people to believe that there was a linkage between Iraq and Al Qaida he should produce the evidence - which he had been unable to do so far when challenged, the PMOS said that he would completely disagree with the premise of the question. We had not pushed the envelope on this issue. We had answered questions. We had been measured in what we had said and had not simply made assertions. The Prime Minister’s argument had been absolutely consistent from the outset. Why were we dealing with Saddam Hussein? Because we were dealing with the threat he posed as a result of his WMD which he had used in the past, the fact that he hadn’t disarmed and the fact that he was in breach of his international obligations. No one could be in any doubt that had the September 11 murderers had access to WMD they would have used them quite cheerfully to kill thousands more people. The Prime Minister had warned repeatedly that if we didn’t act, the twin threats would come together. Pressed as to whether there was any evidence to show that Iraq had ever considered, been asked for or given its weapons to Al Qaida, the PMOS said that it was important neither to overstate any links or ignore them. No one would deny that Saddam’s regime was highly unstable. It had supported terrorism in the past. The Prime Minister had made it absolutely clear that we had to be vigilant to the possibility of the twin threats of WMD and international terrorism coming together in a way that would have devastating consequences. Our case against Iraq had always been founded on the fact that he was in violation of his international obligations. Post-September 11, we also had to accept that there was a potential for the twin threats to coalesce. We had never overstated the linkage between Iraq and Al Qaida. Equally, we had never understated it.
Asylum
Asked to verify today’s Guardian story suggesting that the Government was planning to deport asylum seekers to UN ‘protection areas’ in or near their country of origin, the PMOS reminded journalists that it wasn’t our policy to comment on leaked documents. That said, he wouldn’t dispute what had been published in the Guardian. He said it shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that people were working on a number of different ideas relating to the issue of migration and asylum. A paper on managed migration had been presented to the Cabinet Sub-Committee dealing with the matter. That Committee was entitled ‘Misc 20′ and was chaired by the Home Secretary. The document was a long-term discussion paper which dealt with the global pressures of migration. It had no formal status at the moment, but had been presented by officials to Ministers. At this stage no decisions had been made as to how - or whether - it would be taken forward. This was a complex issue, and it was only right that the Government looked at a range of different solutions to deal with it. Obviously, not every proposal would see the light of day. Asked what he meant in saying that the paper had ‘no formal status’, the PMOS said he was making the point that it shouldn’t be seen as ’shadow’ Green Paper, for example. It was a discussion document. Asked if the paper would be published, the PMOS said that if we were to reach the situation where any proposal was adopted formally as Government policy, then obviously its status would change.
Questioned about the Government’s plan to give work permits to 40,000 asylum seekers, the PMOS said we had always stated that managed migration was an important element of our asylum policy. A low-skilled migrant scheme was currently under consideration. However, he cautioned that the figure of 40,000 which had been quoted in today’s papers was too high. Ministers had yet to make a final decision both in terms of numbers and how such a scheme would operate.
Lords Reform
Asked the Prime Minister’s reaction to the ‘lack of a result’ in the vote on Lords reform last night, the PMOS said that there was an agreement that there was no consensus. A process had been set up after the election in 2001 and the White Paper. No one had ever pretended that this issue would be easy to resolve given the variety of strongly held views on all sides. The Joint Committee had put forward seven options. Both Houses had voted on them yesterday. It was now up to the Joint Committee to assess the outcome. The PMOS took the opportunity to point out that the Government had been ‘hammered’ in the past for its reported control freakery. On this occasion, the Prime Minister had allowed a genuinely free vote. His expressed opinion was just one amongst many. The idea that he had suffered some sort of defeat because his view had not prevailed was nonsense. We didn’t see it like that. Put to him that the Government was only being ‘hammered’ for leaving a ‘complete shambles’ on the issue of Lords reform, the PMOS repeated that it was a complex issue. No one was suggesting that there was an easy solution to it. Asked how he would assess the Prime Minister’s commitment to Lords reform on a scale of 1-5, the PMOS said that he didn’t do 1-5s. Obviously the Prime Minister remained committed to reform of the House of Lords. The next stage was for the issue to go back to the Joint Committee who would assess the way forward. Asked if the Prime Minister continued to believe that remaining Hereditary Peers must go, the PMOS said that that was the stated view of the Government.
‘The Simpsons’
Asked to confirm reports that the Prime Minister had been asked to appear in an episode of ‘The Simpsons’, the PMOS said that we received a variety of different requests from a variety of different programmes and outlets. Each was considered on its merits. Asked what that meant, the PMOS said that it meant exactly what it said.
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